Sudan ‘horror knows no bounds’, says UN, as deaths in Darfur rise

More than 540 people have been killed in Sudan’s North Darfur in just three weeks as paramilitaries intensify their attritional battle for the regional capital of el-Fasher, according to the United Nations.

“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, in a statement on the devastating impact of the two-year civil war published on Thursday, signalling that the death toll of 542 over the past three weeks was likely “much higher”.Darfur in particular has been a key battleground in the brutal war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has left tens of thousands dead, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The RSF, which lost Khartoum last month, has in recent weeks mounted multiple attacks on el-Fasher and the nearby refugee camps of Zamzam and Abu Shouk, triggering an exodus of hundreds of thousands of people 60km (37 miles) across the desert to the town of Tawila.Turk pointed to a new attack three days ago by the RSF on el-Fasher and Abu Shouk that killed at least 40 civilians.

He said he feared further violence after the RSF issued a warning of further “bloodshed” ahead of “imminent battles”, adding that civilians “trapped amid dire conditions” in and around el-Fasher needed to be protected.